


Stains That Won't Come Clean

by Skalidra



Series: 100 Prompts [26]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: 100 Themes Challenge, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Minor Original Character(s), Non-Consensual Tattooing, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 12:51:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6329914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skalidra/pseuds/Skalidra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not unusual for Jason to get dragged from his cell in the middle of the night; the place is deserted and no one is paying attention to any disturbances that might happen in the dark. This time it's Harley, and one of the orderlies. That always means he's in for a long, painful kind of a night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stains That Won't Come Clean

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome! I actually uh, switched themes halfway through on this one. It was supposed to be a flashback, so I was writing it for 'Memory', but then it just wanted to be its own story, so I swapped it over to number 93, which is - *cough* - 'Give Up'. Read the tags, inform yourself, this is going to be nasty. (Enjoy!)

Hands close around his wrists, dragging him from the relative safety of the cell and out into the corridor beyond. There’s two of them, faces and names he recognizes by this point and he knows that means it’s going to be a long night. It doesn’t matter that he struggles; he’s tired, weak, in pain, and it’s a matter of patience and practice that gets him slammed up against the wall with both arms twisted around behind his back.

Knees press into the back of his, grinding them into the wall, as the other one clasps restraints around his ankles. It means that they more drag him down the corridor than any pretense of him walking, holding him with both shoulders twisted in and one solid hand in his hair to keep him from even trying to fight.

The final destination of the cafeteria is inevitable, but he still snarls when he sees the two other people waiting for him anyway. Harley, and one of the orderlies. Usually that means he’s getting force-fed pills or in general having something done that takes a little bit of expertise. Not the worst times, but definitely nasty.

Harley, of all the people who have taken turns taking shots at him, _is_ the worst. That psychology degree makes her too observant, too pinpoint accurate at finding insecurities and exactly what unsettles him the most out of everything they’ve done. Pain he can take, even torture, but his head is not the most impenetrable of places and having her mess with it is sometimes more than he can handle.

If he was going to lay bets on who’s eventually going to win their stupid game, it’d be Harley.

She grins and waves at him, and the two guards drag him over to the table closest to her and slam him down over it. It hurts in a dozen ways, and he hisses out a breath at the pain and then gives a small snarl as he jerks against the hands holding his shoulders down. It’s a rectangular table and they’ve got him pinned down in the short direction, which means his head is hanging over the other side, his torso just long enough to span the whole thing.

Harley skips over as one guard leans basically all of his weight into the small of his back, over his crossed wrists, and the other moves down and disconnects the chain holding his ankles together. He immediately tries to twist and kick out, hit _anything_ that will hurt the sick bastards over him, but strong fingers are catching his ankle and dragging it out, leaving him only the one foot to balance on unless he wants to trust his weight to the guard pinning him down. He _really_ doesn’t. He can’t see it from the angle all of them are at, but he feels the tight tug of what he’d guess is a leather cuff over the pants of his prison uniform, and then the rattle of what’s definitely the other end hooking his ankle to the leg of the table.

It’s not the first time he’s been tied down, and god _damn_ this place because the restraints are medical grade _and_ specific to Arkham’s tendency towards people with enhanced strength. They’re not impossible to get out of, but they’re damn hard and he can’t do it without someone noticing and, usually, threatening to break his fingers if he doesn’t stop. Plus, the tables are bolted to the damn ground so there’s no chance of yanking it up and at least managing some kind of escape that way.

Harley crouches down in front of him, just out of range even if he lunges forward and tries to bite her. He’s managed to bite other people, stupid _morons_ who underestimated his willingness to fight, but never her. Crazy _bitch_ she might be, but she knows he’s dangerous and she’s frustratingly good at not giving him opportunities to hurt her.

She’s smiling as she cheerfully asks, “Tired, little bird?”

His other leg gets kicked out.

“I haven’t been little for a _long_ fucking time,” he snarls at her, jerking against the hold on his arms again. It doesn’t get him anywhere, but he doesn’t expect it to. Frankly, he couldn’t take two geared, trained guards in the state he’s in even if he wasn’t pinned down.

He’d make a damn good show of it, and he’d _hurt_ them, but the chances of him actually winning are really low. Add Harley into that mix and they drop to basically impossible. Even without all the crazy gear she’d have on her outside these walls, she’s a good fighter. Fast, flexible, and unpredictable. Not as dangerous as him, on a good day. A better day than he’s had since he stepped foot in this place.

He feels the second restraint buckle around his other leg, tying him to the table with his legs spread wide. He feels one sharp spike of fear as a hard hand sweeps up the inside of his leg, and his breath catches and _fuck_ he knows Harley sees it, but then the hand does the same to his other leg and he recognizes the sweep as a check for weapons. _Where_ they think he’d have gotten weapons between now and the after-dinner sweep they did just a couple hours ago, he has no idea. Shame they’re so damn thorough or he might have had a better chance at actually taking any of these bastards out.

He’s gotten close a couple of times, scored some _nasty_ hits, but they never go up against him one on one and he just doesn’t have the strength to fight off multiple opponents at once. Not now.

“That’s okay, birdie,” Harley says, voice bright and still so damn cheerful he wants to hit her hard enough to break her goddamn _teeth_. “We’ll make you feel that way again. It turns out we have an _artist_ among us!” Her head tilts back towards the orderly. “He’s gonna give you a little something to remind you what you are, darlin’. Mistah J wanted to be here himself, but he knows he can be impatient and this could take awhile. It’s gonna be a long night, little bird.”

It sounds immensely _terrible,_ whatever the plan is, and he snaps, “I’m not interested in your goddamn art.”

That’s before the orderly shifts, and the hand down near his leg comes far enough out for Jason to see what’s in his hand.

His world freezes for a second, panic sweeping sharp up his spine, and then he just _moves_. He thrashes, shouting and struggling against the guard leaning on his back, because what’s in that hand is a fucking pieced together _tattoo gun_ and that is _not happening_.

Harley doesn’t move, but she’s too far away from him to get so he ignores it, twisting his arms and using every _single_ ounce of his skill and strength to get the hell out of the hold the guard’s got him in. One of his wrists cracks in a way not entirely pleasant, but he gets one arm lose, shoves up, unbalances the son of a _bitch_ behind him.

“Not _fucking_ happening!” he shouts, swinging a wild elbow backwards and connecting with something that makes the guard grunt out a breath of pain and loosen his hold. He yanks free, twists and _claws_ for the nearest patch of skin and tears bloody lines deep enough into the guard’s cheek that it gets the man to yelp and stagger back.

But the second guard lunges forward to fill the space. He can’t get away from the table, not with his legs tied down, but he grapples as best he can with the guard. It’s really only a couple seconds until the guard’s got one of his wrists in hand, twisting his arm up behind his back. He snarls, ignores the pain in his ribs so he can shove up and stop himself from being slammed into the table.

“Down!” the guard hisses, and then a fist is cracking across his face with enough force to stun him.

He hits the table, a second pair of hands joins the first, and then he’s getting dragged up again and both arms are being twisted so far back his shoulders burn, a cry of pain sticking in his throat.

“Easy, boys!” Harley says, with a kind of glee. “Nothing visible, remember? Gotta stay _quiet!_ ”

“ _Fuck_ you!” he shouts, when one of the guards starts dragging the prison uniform off of him, baring his shoulders and chest before they slam him back down against the metal of the table.

Harley hasn’t moved, and she meets his gaze with a wide smile when his gaze snaps up to her. “It’s alright, little bird. We’ll take care of you, promise!”

They get the uniform down to his waist, with a couple of creative and _very_ painful holds when they pull it off his arms. He can taste blood, feel the sting of a freshly split bottom lip, and the rest of his lingering injuries aren’t doing him any favors either, but right then nothing compares to the burn of his shoulders as they’re strained. He breathes through his teeth, tries to twist into the hold to make it hurt a little less but it doesn’t do anything.

He panics again when he feels leather cuffs tug into place around his wrists, jerking against it but unable to get free. He only realizes the cuffs aren’t connected when one guard splits away, circling the table and dragging his wrist with in a circular sweep. It does at least take pressure off the one shoulder, but that’s not nearly enough to stop the fear as the other end of that set of restraints gets hooked to the leg of the table opposite where his leg is held. It stretches his arm out, with maybe half an inch of give but that’s only because his other arm isn’t secured.

With both guards working on his last remaining limb, it only takes them a couple seconds to finish tying him down. He fights the restraints, pulling and snarling, but there’s not enough give to get loose and he doesn’t have the tools he’d need to slip them any other way. He could dislocate his thumb, get one hand out and then the other, but his chances of doing that without any of them noticing are pretty much _shit_. He’d be better off just _asking_ them to break his fingers right off the bat.

Harley watches him thrash for a couple more seconds, and then reaches forward and traces her fingers up one of his outstretched arms. “Relax, little bird,” she murmurs past that fucking _smile_. “This is just gonna be a little reminder that you’re ours. You can take a little pain, can’t you, baby boy?”

He tenses up, watching the orderly move towards him over Harley’s shoulder. Panic makes way for anger, for the kind of hollow fear that comes from knowing there’s nothing he can do to stop this. He shudders, twisting his wrists against the restraints and feeling the hard grip of a gloved hand at the back of his neck.

“When I get the chance,” he starts, quiet and _furious_ , “I’m going to tear your throat out with my goddamn teeth.”

Harley, the _bitch_ , just smiles wider.

Then she looks up towards the guards above him and commands, “Gag him.”

The words barely register before the hand on his neck is grabbing a handful of his hair instead, jerking his head back and up. He clenches his teeth together, but the fingers that dig into his jaw are practiced and force his mouth open without much of a problem. He can’t get away from the leather bit that shoves into his mouth, or the straps that secure it around the back of his head.

“I just _love_ your noises, personally, but our artist prefers to work without too much screaming.” He jerks away from the fingers that stroke down the side of his face, and she gives a small laugh. “It’s alright, little bird. I’ll be here the whole time, _promise_.”

He can hear the guards step away, feel the heat as someone else steps right up against his legs and leans in. There’s a sound like paper being set down somewhere below his left arm — a drawing, if he had to guess — and then he flinches at the whir of the gun starting up. His hands clench into fists, straining against the restraints just in case there’s some miracle that can delay this a few seconds longer.

The first touch of it is to the side of his spine, between his shoulder blades, and he spits out a muffled, distorted curse around the gag. It stings more than it actually _hurts_ , but it’s sharp and prolonged enough to make his muscles draw tight in reaction. The orderly draws a line to the side of his spine, just far enough off it doesn’t come down on the bone, and then a second, matching one on the opposite side. From there it branches out, up to his shoulders and out along the rest of his back. It doesn’t go over his spine, and that at least is one small silver lining in the whole thing.

Harley’s gaze on him is even worse than the makeshift needle, especially the way she looks so damn _pleased_ every time that he winces, or makes some kind of noise. That gets more common as it goes on, and the sting spreads into an aching burn that travels out across his upper back everywhere the tattoo gun passes over. He can’t keep track of the picture, but he knows it’s big, knows it _hurts_ , and knows it’s intricate.

It doesn’t feel like letters, which at least means that they’re not putting someone’s name on his back, but it does leave him totally in the dark concerning what _is_ being pretty much permanently marked onto it. He can more or less handle the pain, even if it is wearing on him the longer this goes on, but the _not knowing_ … That scares the hell out of him. This is some insane joint idea of Harley and the Joker and that means it could be _anything_. It definitely tilts the scales in a direction he really doesn’t like thinking about.

He shivers, flexes his hands against the restraints and closes his eyes. It’s not that hard to set his breathing into a slow rhythm and manually loosen out the muscles in his shoulders and neck. He’s never been fantastic at meditation, but any kind of escape he can get from this clusterfuck of a situation will be great, and he can at least manage to somewhat disconnect from his body to manage the pain. One thing he’s _really_ good at is managing pain.

Until a fist cracks across his face, startling him out of it with a gasp that turns into a muffled shout when fingers curl in his hair and yank his head down and sideways. It twists his neck way more than is even remotely comfortable, and his eyes fly open to find Harley mock-frowning at him.

“Ah-ah, little bird! It’s just _rude_ to zone out when someone’s giving you a gift! Our artist friend is doing _such_ a great job; you don’t want to insult him, do you?”

Something in him snaps.

 _Rage_ washes up his throat, and he screams fury against the gag and thrashes against the restraints, pulling and wrenching against them until it feels like his wrists might break. He calls Harley every nasty thing he’s ever heard, muffled and unintelligible with the gag between his teeth, and then is reduced to just shouting and snarling at her, the table rattling with his efforts but not going anywhere. _Never_ going anywhere.

He just wants to _hurt_ her, to get his teeth or his hands on her and break her into a thousand tiny, bloody pieces. He wants to beat her until she’s barely recognizable and then some more, wants to _feel_ the life go out of her with his hands around her throat. He wants it more than he can even begin to express, no matter how much he screams around the leather or how hard he pulls against the restraints holding him down. Wants it with a kind of desire he hasn’t felt since his whole showdown with Joker and Bruce, but even that was never this _primal_. It was never this all-consuming fury that stopped him from even thinking past the desire to cause _pain_.

He doesn’t know how long he manages to hold onto it, but eventually the last bit of that rage spends itself and all of a sudden he just slumps down, trembling. His head hangs off the edge of the table, the pain and fear spreading out through his chest now that the anger isn’t protecting him from it anymore.

Fingers touch his hair and he jerks, panicking for a brief second before Harley tugs his head up and meets his eyes. She’s got a small smile on her lips, and he shudders and tugs against the grip, tries to shrink back even though there’s nowhere for him to go.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” she murmurs, stroking the fingers of her other hand across his cheek. “Just give in; just like that. Be good for Harley, little bird.”

He shudders again and he’s just in so much _pain_ , and it’s such an awfully open, vulnerable kind, that he can feel — despite the ball of shame in his gut — tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. He takes in a shaky breath, bites down on the gag for a moment and then releases it with one last shudder that ends with him limp and pliant on the table.

What’s the point? He can’t get away, he can’t _stop_ this. He can’t stop any of it.

He closes his eyes, lets his head hang in Harley’s grip and his hands loosen. She gently lowers his head down, letting him go but keeping soft fingers in his hair, stroking over his scalp and god help him it’s almost _nice_. One gentle touch in counterpoint to the pain over his back and the ache of not yet healed injuries.

“Continue,” she says, and a moment later he feels the tattoo gun start back in on him. Lower on his back now, almost down to his waist.

Harley hums something that’s almost inaudible under the buzz of the gun, something that sounds disturbingly like a child’s rhyme and he tries to keep his thoughts away from figuring out exactly what it is. Just keeping his sounds locked away is taking all the power he has left; he can’t spare anything to wonder about whatever Harley’s chosen to hum to him.

It’s not quite a trance, but he grows to feel almost numb to the passage of time and the pain. His world fades out, narrowing to the touch of fingers in his hair, the heat under his skin, and the sound of his own breath behind that ever-present buzz. It could be minutes or hours before suddenly the buzz shuts off and the room falls to silence.

He stirs, pulling in a deeper breath and slipping a little bit back to awareness as voices speak over his head. The hand leaves his hair, and he opens his eyes in time to see Harley stand and start to circle the table. Her tone of voice is pleased, cheerful again, and he shivers under the weight of the stares he can feel. The sharp wave of pain makes him gasp, as his body reminds him of all the old aches, the fact that his legs are stiff, and that pretty much his whole back _burns_.

The gag is an easy target to bite down on, venting some of that pain and trying not to move anymore than he already has. It doesn’t matter that much; he’s fully conscious now and the pain is back in full force. He doesn’t need to move for his back to hurt, it just _does_.

He hears Harley ask the orderly to go fetch the guards — didn’t know that they’d even left — and then she circles back into his line of sight and crouches down in front of him. He looks up, but can’t manage anything more than a small curl of his lips around the gag that might be something like a snarl. It doesn’t even begin to match the wide grin she’s got, and it doesn’t phase her either.

“Oh, you did so _good_ , baby boy. Stayed still just like I wanted you to, all nice and quiet.” He flinches away from the hand that reaches for his hair, has to bite down again at the fresh burst of pain even as her fingers comb his hair back from his face. “It’s over now, sweetheart. All done. The guards are going to take you right back to your cell and you can sleep; they’ll even bring you food all tomorrow so you can recover. See, little bird? When you’re good, you get rewarded.”

He can’t find the energy to even begin to try and combat that notion, especially because there’s a traitorous little part of him that knows it’s true. If he just gave in, if he let them do whatever they wanted, they probably wouldn’t hurt him nearly as bad as they do. It’s a nasty, invasive little thought that settles at the back of his mind, and he just doesn’t have the strength to get rid of it.

Harley smiles at his lack of reaction, and then gently pats the top of his head before drawing back and getting to her feet. He watches her pad around the table, and a moment later he can hear the heavier thud of the guards’ boots from somewhere behind him.

“Right back to the cell!” she proclaims with _way_ too much cheer. “Don’t forget the straightjacket, boys. Wouldn’t want our bird hurting himself any worse while he’s healing up, would we?”

He manages a wince at that, but only puts up a token struggle when the guards free him from the restraints. It hurts so much to really fight, and he’s so damn _tired_ , so it doesn’t take all that much effort for them to tug him back into his uniform and then wrestle him into the confining layer of the white straightjacket. Harley is gone by that point, so is the orderly, and at least that means that no one is around to watch the guards all but carry him through the dim corridors and back to his cell.

He mostly expects to just be tossed back in, like the usual, but instead they pull him over to the cot and actually get him on it, beneath the blanket and on his stomach.

“Think that finally did him in?” one of them asks the other.

He twists his head into the pillow, unwilling to meet either of their gazes right at this second.

“Nah,” the other replies, “he’ll be up and raging again by tomorrow.” Rough fingers undo the strap of the gag, lifting his head with one hand and pulling the gag from his mouth with the other. “Isn’t that right, buddy?”

He takes a second to breathe without the blockade of the leather, and then turns his head just enough that he can spit out a hoarse, “ _Fuck you_ ,” up at the two of them.

The way one of them grins makes it feel counterproductive. “Not my type. Careful though, that orderly from the opposite shifts, Jeff, might take you up on it.”

They turn for the door, as the other one winces. “Oh god, don’t even joke. Harley and Joker would skin him alive and Jeff is not that dumb.”

“I don’t know, Jeff is _pretty dumb_.” The door opens, and he twists his head back into the pillow and tries to get rid of the sick knot forming in his gut by just _breathing_. “What about our ‘artist friend’ Ron then? I mean, he’s in Harley’s good graces now, right? Might buy him a good time.”

“Is Ron gay? I don’t think Ron is gay.”

“I don’t think Jeff is totally gay either, I’m just saying.”

The door closes.

He lasts about another two seconds before his breath catches hard in his throat, and he preemptively bites down into the pillow to muffle any noises. The tears come just a moment later, burning out of the corners of his eyes, and his shoulders shake with the restrained sob that follows.

Permanent. It’s _permanent_.

Whatever the hell is on his back, it’s never coming off. He’s going to have whatever mark they’ve decided to give him for the rest of his _life_ , even if by some miracle he does end up getting out of this hell. He’s _never_ going to be able to get it off of him, never going to be able to wipe the memory of this place from his skin.

God, it’s _never coming off_.

**Author's Note:**

> A note, before anyone says anything. It actually is possible to get tattoos removed, with quite a few sessions of 7-weeks-apart laser surgery. It basically breaks down the ink in the skin so the body can reabsorb it, and usually will either remove it entirely or at least lighten and fade it out quite a bit. However, side effects sometimes include scarring, unusual skin discoloration, and it works by literally burning it away, so it is _very_ painful. It also doesn't work as well over scar tissue, which Jason has lots of.
> 
> So it is possible he could have it removed, but it would be a long, nasty process and might not work very well.


End file.
